Iraq Deputy PM Ramadi surprised all of us - CNN.com
Like many analyzing how Iraq has gotten to this point, al-Mutlaq pointed at least in part to the American decision to disband the Iraqi military after its 2003 invasion, and send droves of suddenly disaffected -- and military-trained -- Sunnis into the streets.
"First you should not dissolve the Iraqi army, and the Americans did dissolve the Iraqi army.
"And then, we said since you have already decided to dissolve the Iraqi army, now you have to build a national army, which is not sectarian, which is a professional army.
"But unfortunately, the army was built in a way that the militias was entered in it, and also it was not built on a national basis, but on a sectarian one," he said.
"Unfortunately, the withdrawal was not in a responsible way. So the occupation was wrong, and the withdrawal was wrong also. Both of them are wrong steps, which led to what we are now. Now we have to act immediately."
He is exactly right. The nation building theory of the Bush administration was both wrong and mislead, because they never understood the secular nature of Iraq.
Like many analyzing how Iraq has gotten to this point, al-Mutlaq pointed at least in part to the American decision to disband the Iraqi military after its 2003 invasion, and send droves of suddenly disaffected -- and military-trained -- Sunnis into the streets.
"First you should not dissolve the Iraqi army, and the Americans did dissolve the Iraqi army.
"And then, we said since you have already decided to dissolve the Iraqi army, now you have to build a national army, which is not sectarian, which is a professional army.
"But unfortunately, the army was built in a way that the militias was entered in it, and also it was not built on a national basis, but on a sectarian one," he said.
"Unfortunately, the withdrawal was not in a responsible way. So the occupation was wrong, and the withdrawal was wrong also. Both of them are wrong steps, which led to what we are now. Now we have to act immediately."
He is exactly right. The nation building theory of the Bush administration was both wrong and mislead, because they never understood the secular nature of Iraq.